


build myself a home out of the cinders and the dust

by OfShoesAndShips



Series: those of us who are lost and low [4]
Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Asexual Character, Consent Issues, Depression, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 08:25:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5368385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfShoesAndShips/pseuds/OfShoesAndShips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What is it you’re after, sir?” he asks, forcing his voice to stay steady, forcing himself to stand steady.</p><p>“You,” Strange says, direct as always, and Childermass would laugh if he were not caught beneath the weight of his own exhaustion.</p><p>Perhaps he is not wanted in the way he wants to be wanted. But he is wanted, and that is something.</p><p>He shouldn’t say yes. But he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	build myself a home out of the cinders and the dust

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This contains issues of consent that can basically be summed up with the phrase 'sex as self-harm'. It also contains an implied eating disorder and implied previous suicide attempt, so if any of these things are likely to be distressing please proceed with caution.
> 
> (also part of the 'Childermass is ace, fight me' continuity, and the title is from 'Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues' by Meursault)

 

 

 

They think he cannot see it. They think he is blind to it, just because he is paid to be; but no. He can see it clearer than he has ever seen anything in his life - they are so very wound up in one another, so entranced by one another’s presence. He remembers when Norrell used to look at him like that, in the half darkness of the early morning, as if looking at the only piece of the world that truly mattered.

 

But now he has Strange for that. He can look at Strange like that and no-one cares, because of course, of course Norrell would look at Strange like that - Strange is, after all, the only other magician in England, the living embodiment of everything Norrell ever wanted. He is respectable and bright and blasts through the world like a stormwind, catching everyone’s eye and basking in the glory it brings him. And he has caught Norrell so completely, so utterly, that Childermass cannot even step into the library without being reminded of it, without echoing with the loss.

 

And so he does not step into the library. Between Strange and Lascelles Norrell has everything Childermass had ever given him, and better, brighter, more respectable, and so has no need of him, any more.

 

He should leave. Should pack his things and walk away. In fact he is halfway to packing up now, holding his copy of Ormskirk in shaking hands and ignoring the dull pounding in his head, the way his entire body aches, the taste of bile in the back of his throat. He’d tried to get up off his bed a few hours ago and had been so dizzy he’d fallen back again; and he has just sat here on the edge of his bed half dressed ever since. Hannah had knocked on his door a while back with tea but he hadn’t answered and she’d left - he cannot quite decide if he wants her to leave him alone or come barging in and shouting at him until he sees sense.

 

He isn’t quite sure of anything any more.

 

-

 

Strange has been watching him for days. He wonders vaguely what he sees - what has made him worthy of notice now, after all that has passed.  Perhaps he has decayed so far Strange wonders if he watches a ghost. Perhaps Strange simply wonders why he is still here when he is so obviously unneeded, unwanted. Childermass can feel his eyes but he ignores it, absorbing himself with the household accounts, reducing himself to nothing but what he is paid for. He may as well. At least the scratching of the pen is something with which to ground himself.

 

-

 

Strange corners him on the second floor landing, late one night or early one morning - he is losing track, drifting from one hour to the next - and he blinks, heavily, trying to think clearly through the pounding of his headach.

 

“What is it you’re after, sir?” he asks, forcing his voice to stay steady, forcing himself to _stand_ steady.

 

“You,” Strange says, direct as always, and Childermass would laugh if he were not caught beneath the weight of his own exhaustion.

 

Perhaps he is not wanted in the way he wants to be wanted. But he is wanted, and that is something.

 

He shouldn’t say yes. But he does.

 

-

 

He leads Strange to his room, acquiesces to his kiss and to his touch, laughs obligingly when Strange runs a hand down his side, slips his fingers into the dips between his ribs and tells him he should eat. Laughs obligingly when Strange tells him he is beautiful and tries not to shrink from the word and what Strange means when he says it. He smiles and laughs and gasps enough that Strange does not look beyond it; just enough to put him off.

 

And afterwards he imagines no-one beside him.

 

-

 

He wakes up in the middle of the night and pulls himself out from under Strange, tugs his clothes back on and walks out. Out of his room, out of the house, into the cold darkness of London’s streets.

 

He wanders for hours until his legs won’t hold him another step. He looks up, finds himself on London Bridge, and laughs until he throws up.

 

-

 

It happens again. And again. And again. He realises with a shock that Strange’s kiss and taste and smell are becoming _familiar_ , that Strange’s presence beside him in the night is becoming something close to wanted.

 

Not quite wanted. Not quite preferable to being alone. But almost. If he cannot sleep in the bed he wants then he will take this and let Strange have of him what price he chooses, because love by proxy is better than no love at all and if this is the only way he can be close to Norrell then he is willing enough. Not, perhaps, as willing as he should be - he still flinches, he still feels hollow and broken and _wrong_ \- but willing enough for it not to matter, not really.

 

Strange calls him _John_ now, when they’re alone. He does not remember asking him to. He does not remember when Strange started kissing him with tenderness, when Strange’s hands became gentle. So gentle his very bones shake with the urge to run. But where does he have left to run to?

 

-

 

He eats enough to shut Strange up. He does his job well enough that Norrell cannot complain.  He winds up walking to London Bridge, more nights than not, and stands there looking out over the water and wondering. It is not that he wants to jump. No. It is not that. But he does not know what it is. Perhaps it is a reminder that he still lives. Perhaps a reminder that he has options. But he stands there and he thinks of another bridge, and feels water in his lungs.

 

-

 

One night, almost a month after that first time, he is unguarded enough to flinch. He flinches back from Strange’s touch on his hip and squeezes his eyes shut too tightly when Strange tries to soothe him with a kiss to his neck, hoping that he won’t have noticed, that perhaps he has over-estimated how much Strange has seen over these past weeks and he will take it simply as him being in an odd mood. But Strange moves back, stops touching him entirely, and he cannot help the sigh that escapes him at that, partly relief and partly the opposite.

 

“John?” Strange whispers, and there is worry in his voice, so much worry that Childermass cringes, feeling everything he has tried to build come collapsing down around him, “John, are you alright?”

 

Childermass breathes out, presses his hands to his face and wishes he could just disappear. But he shakes his head, eventually, and Strange’s sharply indrawn breath is like a shock of cold water all over him.

 

“It’s nothing,” he whispers, barely recognising his own voice, “You can take of me what you like, I don’t mind-;”

 

“ _I_ very much mind!” Strange says, an odd kind of hollow shock in his voice, “I would-; I would _never_ -;”

 

“It doesn’t matter-;”

 

“It most certainly _does_ matter!” he says, and the shock is beginning to give way to sympathy, to _pity_ , and Childermass clambers out of bed, his head spinning as he stands; he staggers a little and grabs his shirt from where it had ended up over the dresser.

 

“John-;”

 

“I will not take your pity,” Childermass snarls, as he buttons up his shirt and resolutely does not look at the bed, “I would take anything but that-;”

 

“I did not believe this a thing of _taking!_ ”

 

“What was it, then? Love? Sorry, but all I had of that is spent.”

 

Strange is silent, and then he too gets out of bed. “I had not thought it that,” he says, very carefully, “I have seen the way you look at him-;”

 

“You’re mistaken.”

 

“And you are lying.”

 

Childermass does not dignify that with an answer, training his eyes on the floor and ignoring the sounds of Strange getting dressed.

 

“I had not thought myself a tool with which you hurt yourself. I would not have-;”

 

“Spare me your moralising,” Childermass murmurs, though with less vitriol than before. He doesn’t look up as Strange walks closer, fully dressed once more, and flinches when Strange touches his wrist.

 

“If I may borrow my wife’s advice for a moment,” Strange says, very softly but without that cloying pity, “I suggest you talk to him.”

 

Childermass does not move, does not say anything, and Strange leaves, closing the door behind him.

 

 

 


End file.
